


To Be a Father

by Maltheniel



Series: The Once and Future King [5]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, luckily they have each other to calm them down, neither Merlin nor Arthur feel prepared to be fathers, part of the Once and Future King series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:20:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25014601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maltheniel/pseuds/Maltheniel
Summary: When Arthur realizes he and Gwen are going to have a second baby, he panics. Luckily he has Merlin to soothe his ruffled feathers.When Merlin realizes he and Freya are going to have a baby, he doesn't fare any better. But what are kings your friend for except for calming you down?
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: The Once and Future King [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1774627
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	To Be a Father

When Arthur realized he was going to become a father to a second child, he panicked. Merlin was amused.

"What if I do something wrong?" he asked frantically as he and Merlin walked along the corridor after Arthur and Gwen made the official announcement to the court. "What if I'm such a terrible king the child doesn't want to be royalty at all? What if I'm such a terrible father it disowns me when it's grown up? Merlin!" he exclaimed, turning to grab his friend's shoulders, "what if it's a _girl?_ I don't know anything about dresses or – or hair or anything!"

Laughing, Merlin ducked out of his friend's grip. "Arthur," he protested, "you're the greatest king Camelot has ever seen." (He had stopped saying, "You're the greatest king Albion has ever seen" by this time, because Arthur had kept answering that with, "I'm the only one it's ever seen – therefore by default I'm the greatest. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, _Mer_ lin.") "And why would you be anything but a wonderful father?"

Arthur stepped to the edge of the balcony and looked down at the courtyard of the castle. "My father wasn't exactly a shining example," he said quietly. "I don't have a perfect copy to follow."

Merlin stilled, further protests dying on his lips. He stepped forward to lean against the railing beside Arthur, who went on softly, "I know he loved us; I've never doubted that. But being king – his interpretation of being king – always came before us."

"For one thing," Merlin answered, soft and sincere as Arthur was being, "you don't treat the kingship the same way he did. You treat it as something you can do for your people, not something they owe you."

"Yes, and I could always be prioritizing some distant crisis in a far corner of one of the nine countries I'm responsible for over my children and riding off to deal with it," Arthur retorted pensively.

"Then don't," Merlin said simply, and over Arthur's half-teasing, half-scoffing repetition of the phrase, he added quickly, "Arthur, you see what the dangers are – you've lived what the dangers are. Just do what you can to avoid them; do what you would have wanted Uther to do when you were a child. Don't – don't just worry, Arthur," he said, stumbling over his sincerity, _"do_ what you know your kids would want. You'll be fine."

Arthur stared at Merlin for a long moment. "You and your advice, Merlin," he said then, but though he was clearly trying for teasing, his words came out sincere.

"Well, there has to be some reason you decided I could stay on as Court Sorcerer," Merlin said flippantly, turning back to the courtyard.

"Yes, and it obviously wasn't that you have more magic in your little finger than most sorcerers have in a lifetime," Arthur retorted lightly.

Merlin chuckled, trying not to let it sound hysterical. Arthur joking about his magic had been part of his wildest dreams for so long that to hear it aloud still had a tendency to overawe him with the fact that he had been given a second chance.

"What if it is a girl, though?" Arthur asked after a moment, and though neither of them said the name, Merlin knew they were both thinking of Morgana.

He stared down into the courtyard, feeling the old shame of wishing he had overcome his fear to be there for her. "Listen to her," he said softly, and found nothing else to say on that topic. "And you'll have Gwen," he added more lightly.

"And I'll have Gwen," Arthur echoed, and his face lit up with the smile he kept reserved for only Gwen. It made Merlin think of Freya nowadays, and he wondered suddenly, and not without a feeling of panic, how long it would be before he might become a father.

"Anyhow," he added after a moment, "it's not like this is your first child. I know you weren't here when Amhar was born," he added quickly, "but you've stepped into being his father naturally since you came back."

"I've just been imitating you," Arthur said – honestly but with a definite twinkle in his eye.

"Me!" Merlin squawked, but knowing how much Amhar saw him as a father, he wasn't as shocked as he would once have been.

"So any criticisms you have on my fathering on that head will only be reflections on you," Arthur went on, and now he really was laughing at Merlin.

Merlin shook his head. "Then you've been watching excellent parenting all those years in the lake," he said, pretending arrogance. "You should know everything about how to do it."

"I thought I was supposed to be the arrogant one," Arthur protested, but he was lighthearted now and seemed to be over his fears of fatherhood.

Merlin didn't doubt he and Gwen would have to deal with one or two more panic attacks, especially once the baby was born and Arthur realized how small and precious its weight in his arms was, but at least this one was solved. He shoved Arthur's shoulder and darted down toward the courtyard before he could be shoved back, the ridiculous train of his court robe flapping behind him as he went to change it.

When Merlin realized he was going to become a father, he panicked. Arthur was amused.

"I don't know how to be a father!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down in his quarters. Arthur, who had found by Freya and summarily sent to "talk sense into my husband," sat smirking in a chair and waited for him to calm down. "I only bring magic back to a land after failing to do so for years without count, I fail to protect my king so badly he needs a second life to fulfill his destiny, I ruin half the lives I touch – you don't get second tries at fatherhood, Arthur. What if I completely mess up with my first child?" He said all this in a tremendous rush.

"I'd say you already had your first child in Amhar," Arthur answered, "and you did a brilliant job with him." He would never cease to be grateful that Merlin had stepped into the role he could not provide for his young son. It did create an interesting state of affairs now, where Amhar trusted and loved Merlin at least as well as Arthur, but Arthur wouldn't have taken Merlin's support away from a young Amhar and told him to wait for his father's return for anything.

"I just tried to give Amhar what I never had as a child," Merlin retorted. "I wasn't even trying to be a father."

"If you are that good of a father without even trying, I don't see why you'd be worried about the quality of your fatherhood when you are trying," Arthur retorted, but the reality of that first phrase squeezed his chest. When he and Merlin had talked about Balinor being Merlin's father on the trip back from the second battle with the Saxons, it had been in the context of dragonlords, not in the context of the absence his exile had left in Merlin's life.

Merlin swallowed hard and ran both hands through his hair. "I utterly failed Aithusa," he answered.

Arthur blinked at the non sequitur. "I don't see what that has to do –" he began, before Merlin spun on him and cut him off.

"Don't you?" he asked sharply. "I was her dragonlord – I called her from her shell and told her it was safe for her to come forth and live. Instead she got captured and tortured by the Sarrum when she should have been able to spend those years by my side, learning how to interact with humans and growing into a strong and healthy dragon. Morgana cared for her more than I ever did. It took me years to earn her trust again later, and when she realized she forged the sword that killed you – she'll never quite forgive herself for that. All because I –" He swallowed again and turned away.

"You take too much blame on yourself," Arthur shot back, sharp because he was cut to the quick with the realization of how much blame he bore in the situation too. "If it hadn't been for the ban on magic, you would have brought her to the castle to grow up. You saved her egg and gave her the chance to live, Merlin. More than that was beyond you at the time."

"Then shouldn't I have waited until it was safe to call her forth?" Merlin shot back.

Arthur shook his head. "We can argue about the mistakes we made back then and what we should have done differently all day," he said – which was a fact he knew from experience. "The point now isn't what either of us should or shouldn't have done. The point is that you wanted to do the best for Aithusa, and when you got the chance you've become a wonderful dragonlord to her. Do you think she'd be the happy dragon she is today without you?"

Merlin shook his head and dropped into a chair opposite, holding his head in his hands. For a long moment neither of them said anything; then Merlin began slowly, staring at the floor, "I hardly knew what it meant to be a dragonlord back then; Kilgarrah had to coach me through everything."

Arthur wanted to cut in with a triumphant, "See!" but Merlin was going on. "My father should have taught me, but he was never there. At least you knew what not to be from Uther, and a little bit of what you should be. I – I never had any father at all." He glanced up at Arthur, eyes dark with old pain. "I tried to give Amhar what I didn't have, so he wouldn't feel the loss the same way I did. That feels like too little to give my own children as a father."

It was Arthur's turn to glance away, feeling the weight of Merlin's pain and the age-old guilt that it was his father who had deprived Merlin of the chance to know his father. But as he had pointed out to Merlin, this was not a time for them to get stuck in old guilt.

Merlin's quiet voice cut through his thoughts. "I never even thought I'd be a father at all," he added wonderingly.

Arthur pounced on that, since it was his job to make his friend feel better now. "That's a good thing, at least," he said a bit awkwardly. "At least you have that chance."

"It is," Merlin agreed, but his tone was half-hearted at best.

"And you have been an excellent father to Amhar, and to Aithusa when you were given the chance," Arthur pressed on. "If you think it takes you two tries to get something right – which it really doesn't, except when it came to all your chores – you've already had your tries and done well with them. You might be a more attentive father than otherwise, knowing – well, what you do." He still wasn't good with comforting speeches, and felt very awkward indeed.

"Attentive, or smothering," Merlin said with a little chuckle, but at least he looked less despairing. "And at least the fact that my child will almost certainly have magic isn't a bad thing now." He still looked awed as he said it, and Arthur had to agree. He was glad Merlin's child would never know the fear of magic Merlin and Freya must have lived with for so long, and he couldn't even imagine how much more thankful they must be.

"And you do have examples," Arthur said teasingly. "Leon, and Percival, for instance. Even me!"

"You're hardly a stellar example," Merlin shot back. "I distinctly remember a conversation where you told me – hmm, what was it? That you had no idea how to be a father either?"

"I never said that!" Arthur retorted swiftly. "I expressed my concerns in a much more dignified way." Merlin snorted at that, but they were both grinning again, so Arthur counted this a success. He expected Merlin would still worry – he could never seem to stop doing that – but Freya would be able to smooth over some of his worries, and Arthur was sure she would send him to Merlin if she ever thought Merlin needed him again.

"And look at me now!" he added, standing up. "I have a daughter, and I'm not terrified of being her father every day now."

Merlin glanced up at him and looked unexpectedly thoughtful as he rose; Arthur guessed he was thinking something along the lines of the fact that even the most terrified could actually be decent fathers, but all he said was, "At least you'll never admit it to me."

Arthur chuckled and moved toward the door; the conversation was making him want to go cuddle Cerelia again. Behind him, Merlin suddenly exclaimed, "Wait! What if my baby is a girl?"

"Then you get to deal with dresses, and hair, and all of that when she grows up," Arthur responded, laughing. "But you'll have Freya."

He looked back to see Merlin's face softening into a look he'd never seen it wear for any other topic. "Yes," he said softly, smiling. "I'll have Freya."


End file.
